Great article, I could easily swap Germany with Italy here and it would read the same, except most Italians would not defend Italy, I suspect the same holds for France. Western Europe is dead for the expat. If you are in IT and you want to work in Europe then I encourage you to try out Eastern Europe. In Poland you have around a 20% all in rate (tax, insurance, pension) if you are on a B2B contract. Czech, Slovakia, Romania, Estonia and Latvia also have competitive taxes. People are more open and the majority of young people speak great English.

The other options are the digital nomad visas which cut heavily the tax rates in Spain, Italy and Portugal BUT you will have to deal with bureaucracy that is FAR worse then what is described in the article.

Lastly, I particularly liked your comments about xenophopia. The way Germans treat foreigners is the same way the Swiss treat Germans in Zurich. It's the first country where I felt less discriminated than a German, it was surreal.